Gee, parts of N’Awlins are still under sea level (and unlikely to change.) You would think the above headline was a given.
And why does it NOT surprise me that what the local leaders were most concerned about…
As part of the report, the corps plans to make available a Web site that allows New Orleans residents to study the city on a block-by-block basis, and learn what kind of damage they might expect with different kinds of storms. As a result, it could potentially lead insurers and investors to think twice about supporting the rebuilding efforts in particularly vulnerable areas, or even in the city as a whole. But it also shows that some areas are less vulnerable than earlier thought.
Major General Don Riley, the head of civil works for the corps, said in an interview that local leaders were initially wary of the report and how it would be used, and some said, “Oh, boy, I’m not sure we can do this – because we’re trying to get people to move back in.” But, he said, “after we worked with them and showed them, they said, ‘This can really be a good tool for planning.’ ”
The new report, more than a year behind schedule and still a work in progress, is an enormously ambitious attempt to figure out just how risky it is to live in New Orleans.
Some of the risk has clearly been reduced, largely because of the construction of enormous gates across the mouths of the city’s three main drainage canals. In other parts of the greater New Orleans area, where the hurricane protection system was restored but not upgraded in a major way, the probability of damage does not shift nearly as much.
Seems it’s a constant fact of life that safety will be shorted in the name of economic progress after major disasters. From the great quake and firestorm in San Francisco, all the way up to present day.